Just Try
by Will Peterson
Summary: He knew it would be a doomed experiment from the start. Ethics and a sense of duty had held him back, as well. But in the end, Seiran could not resist the temptation to try his luck and slip Anise a love potion.
1. Chapter 1

_I don't know if this holds true for all translations, but in chapter 8 of the manga version I read, Seiran tells Anise that he spiked the chocolate he gave her with a love potion so she'd fall in love with him. Apparently he was joking, but I can't help but read way too far into that interesting line. Aren't cute characters more interesting when they show a degree of evil?_

 _As always, thank you for reading._

 **Just Try (1)**

Seiran could not recall ever feeling this anxious while watching somebody else eat. His own breath and heartbeat seemed too loud in his ears. His fingertips sounded like heavy rainfall as they drummed on the surface of the desk. _Please finish it before my head explodes,_ he thought.

"Why are you staring at me?" Anise asked, her voice immediately standing out to him over the voices of all the other students in the room.

"Sorry, it's just . . ." He held his fist against his chest, over his heart – a nervous habit. "I . . . I worked very hard to make this lunch for you."

"Are you worried I don't like it? I already told you that it's delicious! Don't you believe me?"

"Of course I believe you! I was about to say, well, you can . . . I mean, if it's delicious, then you won't mind finishing all of it?"

She flashed him a smile. "Of course, Seiran. I'll eat every bite."

He smiled back, hoping that he was a mirror for her. "Thank you, Lady Anise."

"I should be the one thanking you."

 _No, not really._

His mind still lingered on the lunch period even after it ended and they had to part ways for afternoon classes. True to her word, she'd cleared the contents of the lunchbox. She said it was delicious, even, and seemed to mean it. Was it safe to say that she hadn't noticed any trace of the love potion he'd carefully mixed into it?

Class time – the teacher's droning lecture quickly faded into the distant background, or so it felt to him. Really Seiran was the one who faded into the retreat of his own thoughts. That was happening a lot lately, him spacing out, since a wandering mind and a dreamlike state went hand-in-hand.

Life had felt unreal to him ever since he first began planning this move. He'd toyed with the idea before, in idle daydreams, but funnily enough it wasn't until he became serious about the decision that the true dream started. The following hours and days were spent tearing through towers of heavy old books, researching all he could about the dubious topic of manipulating love, and then creating a string of test potions until he finally mixed one that looked and smelled right – and all this time, he was chased by a haze of disbelief, the constant sensation that he couldn't truly be doing this. Even now that the act was done, he still felt trapped inside a very long dream.

As murky as the world seemed now, though, one thing he still knew with absolute clarity was the reason he did it. Even if his entire life flipped upside-down and cloaked itself in smoke, he would always be sure of his devotion to Anise.

He used to believe that loving her meant he wouldn't care who she ended up with, as long as she was happy. In a way, that was still true, but . . .

Seiran stifled a sigh as he remembered. Maybe the actual length of time wasn't really that long, but he felt as though he'd spent ages holding his own feelings back out of consideration for the other three knights. Not that his efforts did them any good. When it came to romance, they were fools who danced to the wrong tune. Seiran had watched them so many times, hoping one of them would seize destiny and prove to be a perfect match for Anise, only to be disappointed. Every time Mutsuki acted too cold, or Tenjo said too much, or Kaede said too little, it heightened Seiran's desire to take matters into his own hands.

He tried to stop himself. He really tried. But in the end, he couldn't resist the temptation to make that potion. It was too difficult to forget. It was driving him crazy.

Not that dosing someone with consumable love was much less crazy, if one thought about it. When it came to notorious concoctions, few could rival the infamously spotty record of the love potion. Before starting work on this project, he'd read about people who'd attempted the same. He'd studied historical anecdotes told in outdated language and buried in dust and time. Nobody spoke of a success story – not convincingly, anyway. Amazingly, though, the utter lack of certainties hadn't scared him away from the tantalizing prospect of winning a special girl's affections. Somehow, in some manner, he would be the first to make a love potion work. He believed it.

He'd never brewed anything like this before. Neither had anyone else, not really, not successfully. It was probably too optimistic to hope for no unforeseen consequences, since surprises popped up all the time in the world of experiments. Seiran only hoped that whatever side effects occurred, if any, they would not be too much to handle. Nothing bad should ever come to Lady Anise.

Another sigh rose up inside him, and again he suppressed it. He still felt like a criminal for pulling this trick, but it was too late to have regrets now. Besides, he gave the other knights their chance. It wasn't his fault they could never get their act together. Since none of them were getting any closer to Anise, it was only fair that he be allowed to take his own chance and pick up where the others were floundering.

Seiran blinked to refocus his eyes. In a few moments he started to come back into the classroom around him, almost felt the surface of his desk underneath his fingers and almost heard the lecturer's dull voice again – but then he was abruptly dragged back into his mind when a new thought struck him.

Was it possible that his own brain could deceive him? Could it bend the truth and tell him whatever he wanted to hear? It was returning to him now, a rush of memories. In the beginning, when the love potion was only a tempting idea, he had been steeled into making a real decision by the haunting fear that the other knights were getting _too_ close to Anise, leaving Seiran behind. He'd convinced himself by remembering all the times when another knight gave Anise a look that he knew too well, and then Anise looked back with a smile that Seiran, worryingly, didn't know well at all.

It was the opposite of what he'd been thinking mere moments ago.

Somewhere in the many weeks along the way, in between starting and completing work on the love potion, his mindset must have shifted. Actually, maybe it shifted more than once – it was occurring to Seiran that he didn't clearly remember what he'd been thinking throughout the whole process.

Perhaps he didn't have absolute clarity on this after all.

This time his sigh was unrestrained as he lowered his forehead to his desk. A moment later, the teacher told him sternly to bring his head back up. The world turned invisible to him when he was deep in thought, but it appeared the opposite had yet to come true.

 **(Segment Break)**

Anise did not come to school the next day.

Or the next.

 _Something has gone wrong,_ Seiran started thinking after a few days of her absence. _Is it my fault?_

He was back to drumming his fingers, this time on his knee, as he listened quietly to the talking of his three companions. The four rose knights had convened on the school rooftop to discuss the matter of their recently disappeared sovereign. While Seiran sat on a bench, the other three had opted to remain standing, furthering the usual height differences between him and them.

"She's just sick, guys," Kaede was saying exasperatedly. "You know, as in the normal reason somebody would be absent from school? It does happen to human beings from time to time."

"I have trouble believing that," Tenjo replied, running an agitated hand through his hair. "I can't shake off the sense that a sinister force is at work, keeping Lady Anise away from us. I fear our enemies have gotten hold of her. Could it be that the dark truth lies right under our noses and we just aren't looking hard enough to see it?" He sounded completely serious.

Mutsuki muttered something indistinct.

Staring up at them, Seiran's gaze flickered between each of the three, looking at their faces, searching with paranoia for any sign that they might be able to hear the thoughts straight out of his head. At the same time, he was conscious of how they occasionally glanced at him. Not because they were actively scrutinizing him, but simply because he was there and people tended to do that, to idly look around themselves. He tried to remember what he was supposed to look like while worried. A furrowed brow, eyelids drooping slightly as if he were a bit sleepy . . . wasn't that right?

It shouldn't be so difficult to make one of his normal expressions. He shouldn't have to think about it at all, but he had the distinctly ominous feeling that if he didn't keep watch of himself, something about his face or his manner would give away that the concern expected of him was tinged with guilt unexpected of him.

"Look, you're blowing this way out of proportion," Kaede said. "I saw her yesterday. She summoned me so I could see her and know how she's doing. Yeah, she was tired and coughing a bit, but it was nothing grave or extraordinary –"

"She _summoned_ you?" Mutsuki remarked with mild surprise.

"She summoned _you?"_ Tenjo said with much greater surprise.

Kaede glanced at both of them, looking baffled. "Yes?"

While Mutsuki crossed his arms and commented on how odd it was for a knight to be summoned for such a small purpose, Seiran silently agreed with Tenjo's assertion that Anise's choice of knight was the more puzzling aspect. Why Kaede, as opposed to any of the others? Tenjo asked him this directly, and Kaede began fumbling for an answer, and Seiran leaned in because he was wildly curious about what Kaede would say –

"Hold on," Mutsuki interrupted. "Where did this happen? Did she summon you to her sickbed?"

Seiran, instantly flushing with the implications of Mutsuki's question, gaped at Kaede. "Were you in her bedroom?"

Kaede flushed as well. "That's not import –"

"What torture is this?" Tenjo cried, cutting Kaede off. He made a flailing gesture with his arms, his long sleeves blurring the air with streaks of white. "How could Lady Anise pass me over and give the high privilege of seeing her in her bedroom to another man? Is this punishment for an unspeakable crime that I do not know I committed? Is she playing a game with my emotions? She plucks my heartstrings as if playing a guitar!"

Mutsuki grimaced in distaste, obviously regretting asking his question.

Seiran was still looking at Kaede, contemplatively now. "So why did she pick you?"

Kaede uttered a quiet groan. "I'm sure it was just random, Seiran. It didn't matter which one of us was informed as long as somebody knew, so she just picked."

He made that statement as if it was obvious to him, but Seiran wasn't so sure.


	2. Chapter 2

**(2)**

More days passed. The weekend came and went. Anise's absence from school continued.

Sometimes Seiran decided it was just a coincidence that she happened to fall sick right after taking his potion. As Kaede pointed out, ailments happened to people from time to time, and perhaps Lady Anise had truly remarkable timing.

Other times Seiran's mind flipped back into the assumption that he was the cause of Anise's illness. To be honest, this seemed more likely, but it was harder for him to bear. It felt much less painful to place the blame on pure chance. The only problem was that he couldn't always manage to do so.

In the times when his heart was weighted with guilt, he felt almost compelled to admit what he did to someone else, if only to take the weight off his chest. But he wouldn't dare. He couldn't begin to imagine what the other knights might do to him if they found out he drugged their sovereign. Actually, even if they didn't _do_ anything to him, their anger and disappointment alone would be enough to devastate him.

He still wasn't sure of exactly how his potion affected Anise, but no matter what the final results turned out to be, he would have to take the secret of his involvement to the grave. How odd it was to picture himself going through life, day after day, storing this secret within him permanently, like a butterfly that is captured in a box and never released. That was the way it had to be, though, because the alternative was unthinkable.

A week into Anise's absence, Seiran's worry reached a peak; he was struck by the notion that he might have accidentally killed her. Once the idea entered his head, he couldn't kick it out, but luckily the resulting period of paralyzing fear was very brief – because Anise came back to school.

Now this had to be a coincidence. She could not have reappeared especially for him, just in time to calm his panic. Still, it felt that way to Seiran.

When he saw her again, she had returned to the same time and place that this whole fiasco started: the lunch period. What a sensation that was, walking unsuspectingly into the room, and feeling his eyes land instantly on the angel who was not sitting in that chair yesterday. The astonishment was so great that he kept his distance at first, hanging back near the door. It felt as though he was watching a ghost that could fade into the air again at any moment.

He was late to the party, it seemed. The other three knights were already in the room. Mutsuki, arms crossed, hung back in a corner, but the other two were sitting closer to her. Tenjo, in fact, sat so close that he was practically occupying her desk instead of his own.

"My world has been a cold, desolate wasteland without you this past week, Lady Anise," Tenjo was saying to her. Despite the lack of space between them, he managed to gesticulate extravagantly with his arms without bumping into her. "In your absence, I have been lost. Yet I would not trade my suffering for any treasure in the world, for it is through enduring pain induced by you that I learn about love all over again. The true colors of life become so brilliant wherever you're concerned!"

Anise merely grimaced and continued eating her lunch – a lunch that was a gift from Tenjo, Seiran noticed with a stab of irritation, judging by the exquisite decorations swirling over the box.

He couldn't hold onto that anger for long, however. Underneath the melodramatic speech, Tenjo's concern was genuine. Seiran could feel that. And when Tenjo finally paused to take a breath, Kaede took the chance to comment, "Well, I guess I should mention this, too. It is nice to have you back, Anise." Meanwhile, Mutsuki stayed in the corner, watching the display of group affection without participating, but even he directed toward Anise a scowl that was slightly less menacing than his usual one.

Seiran released a long, heavy sigh. It felt like a surrender. He'd been too hard on his fellow knights. While they didn't always do the best job of showing it, they loved her too.

Anise could roll her eyes all she wanted, but Tenjo was right: the rose knights were lost without their sovereign. They were linked to her, even if they didn't want to be. They felt her absence and they felt her presence.

"I wish I didn't have so much schoolwork to catch up on," Anise grumbled. "Still, it is good to be back. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm actually glad to see all three of you again. And when Seiran –" As if on cue, she apparently spotted him the moment she said his name. Slowly, her face lit up with a smile, and his heart thudded against his chest. In the surprise of seeing her, he'd forgotten about the love potion. Well? Did it work? Was there anything meaningful behind that smile?

"Hey, Seiran, come over," Anise said, waving at him. "I was just wondering when you were going to join us."

As he approached, he studied her so intently that it was a wonder if she couldn't feel heat from his gaze. He looked to her expression for signs of change, signs of new love.

Not that one could tell he was searching, underneath his innocent surface. "Lady Anise," he said, in a tone that sounded almost too polite. "I'm happy to see you. How's your health? Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. It was just a cold."

The talk stopped there. She continued to smile at him. He smiled back – a mirror for her, he hoped once again. It was so strange. He meant every word he just said, so why did he feel like an actor playing a role?

"Well," he said. Infused with a sudden boldness, he grasped her hands in his own. The action caused them both to lean closer to each other. Their gazes locked. "I know I already said this, but let me say again that I am really, incredibly filled with joy to be near you again."

Her eyes were dazzling. He was losing his resolve, being so close while staring into them. He was losing himself and his mind and his focus. But he couldn't let that loveliness distract him from his purpose. He searched the depths of those eyes for any hint, any sign that the connection was mutual. Had anything in the world ever been sought so frantically? He was always drawn to her, magnetically, and if she didn't feel the same despite the strength of his emotions –

She looked away. Broke the lock between their stares and slipped her hands out of his as if it were nothing. Didn't even comment on it; just moved on to the next topic of conversation. "Thanks, Seiran. So, Kaede, you mentioned that recently . . ."

 _She's not._

 _In love._

 _With me._

After that, it was easy to lose concentration and tune out the conversation around him. He didn't need to know any more. He could only be thankful that Anise and the other knights thought she had gotten sick in the normal manner. (Who knew? Maybe they were right. It wasn't as if he had any idea what his potion actually did.)

Black and white rose seemed oblivious to his melancholy, but during the few times that Seiran came out of his reverie enough to notice, he saw Kaede shooting him a few odd looks.

"Oh, dear," Seiran muttered.

He was not saying this to Kaede. He was saying this to his house.

After school, he had returned home to his greenhouse-lab and resumed his hobby of experimenting. Unfortunately, something went awry with one of the many explosive substances and now he was staring at a large simmering hole in the wall.

After examining it for some time and determining that the gap was not getting any larger, he began running through calculations in his head. How much time, what materials, what needed to be done to repair this hole . . . It should be a simple task. He was no stranger to explosion damage. And yet . . . every thought that crossed his mind sunk him further into gloom. Why did it matter? He could deal with it later. Or maybe even not at all. The wall didn't need to look pretty for any guests. He lived alone in this vast, empty home. Alone.

He exited the greenhouse. He didn't want to look at that wall anymore. Upon entering the main house, and finding himself at a loss for what to do now, he took to wandering the halls. Questions and restless feet paired together.

Why didn't the love potion work? He was thinking about it too much; he ought to seal away the issue and forget he ever committed such a lousy act. Try as he might, though, he couldn't beat down his fervent curiosity. Letting go of a failed experiment without reflecting on it simply couldn't sit well with him. Perhaps some part of his research had been faulty . . .

His mind went blank for just a second when he stopped short in the hallway, in front of a tall decorative vase that caught in his sight. It was one of many vases that sat in his house, lining the walls, gracing windowsills. Due to his allergy, he couldn't fill them with real roses, but he adored the flower too much to empty his home of them. Most of the time, it didn't bother him that all his vases contained fake roses.

On the other hand, there were also instances like this, when looking at a static bouquet caused his eyes to reawaken and his chest to feel a pull of pain. Something just seemed sad about how similar the fake flowers were to him, the fake human.

That potion tried to create love between a real girl and an artificial boy. Maybe that was a doomed wish from the start.

His back slid against the wall as he sunk to the ground. A sudden tiredness had made him sit down, across the hall from the vase of fake roses. Mirrors for each other, the two of them were.

No . . . no . . . His memory must be playing tricks on him again, if he could've forgotten that he'd been through this whole process already. Didn't he learn his lesson the first time? Anise had fought to save him. When his life was in danger, she had _fought_ for him. As if he had the same value as a human. She didn't care about his origin – there was shockingly little she cared about when it came to the old traditions of the rose knights – and she'd already gotten him to agree with her that it didn't matter.

The memories gave him a moment of gladness, but it was brief, because there must be something else. Another thing had caused his love potion to fail. Search, then. Search his own mind the same way he'd searched her face earlier today.

Among the many writings – essays, journals, accounts – that he'd read concerning the dysfunctional business of love potions, plenty had dismissed it as impossible. More or less, he'd willingly forgotten these warnings so that he could proceed with his crazy scheme, but details were coming back to him now. Writers with assured words and cool, levelheaded tones had theorized about why none seemed to succeed, out of all the trials done throughout history. One belief that kept cropping up was that bottled love could not interfere where real love existed.

Did that mean Anise was already in love with someone else?

Or maybe – did destiny truly exist? Was she simply destined to love someone other than him? His wish was really doomed, if that was the case.

Seiran pressed his hands to his face and groaned. Enough. It came to him in an abrupt burst of realization: this line of questioning was pointless to pursue. He'd been wondering what was wrong with the love potion, but the real issue here was what in the world was wrong with him.

He'd slipped a potentially mind-altering substance to Lady Anise. The person he was sworn to serve and protect. Even if it hadn't managed to work, that didn't erase his original intentions. Where had his mind gone, that he could do such a terrible thing? A knight should never commit such a wrong against his sovereign, a friend shouldn't wrong a friend, and a boy shouldn't wrong the girl he loves.

Happiness returned to him. A heavy happiness, tinged with the sharp bitterness of a rusted knife, but nonetheless he was honestly glad that his potion failed. He couldn't imagine how he would've lived with himself if he'd won her love through unfair means. Even her love itself likely wouldn't be enough to diminish his guilt.

It was already going to be hard enough to live with himself. He was going to live out the rest of his life, however long it turned out, trying to distance himself from this mistake of an experiment.

END


End file.
